Link this to music somehow if it makes you feel better, I just felt the need to create this due to the amazing passion that it is within my life.

A lot of people criticize gaming as somewhat of a kids toy, something you grow out of as you get older, personally I find it an exciting, creative medium full of artistic expression and creative thought.

Does anyone else share my sentiment? It would be nice to hear that someone else cares.

I think the BioShock series has a challenging aesthetic and critique of eugenic theory. That's just one example of a game that really does have something to say and I think this is true of many of the best games. I think they are a totally legitimate creative statement - although some more than others.

I love Bioshock and am an even bigger fan of the Half Life 2 series. They're becoming more and more like interactive movies where you experience the entire spectrum of emotions. Then there are the lighter hearted games like Little Big Planet and LBP2 that I play with my seven year old daughter. Those games were made by some very creative people. I just can't wait to see what's around the corner. If we could see ten or fifteen years into the future, it would blow our minds.

I love Bioshock and am an even bigger fan of the Half Life 2 series. They're becoming more and more like interactive movies where you experience the entire spectrum of emotions. Then there are the lighter hearted games like Little Big Planet and LBP2 that I play with my seven year old daughter. Those games were made by some very creative people. I just can't wait to see what's around the corner. If we could see ten or fifteen years into the future, it would blow our minds.

Ken Levine was inspired greatly by Half Life when creating Bioshock, it was a fantastic, original game, it was such a shame that the second one, while solid, re-used too much of what made the original good.

The next one looks particularly interesting, the whole concept behind it (a Freudian beauty and the beast love story mixed with a detective tale) looks incredibly detailed. The setting is not in Rapture either, rather a floating city, and the backstory behind that city looks really interesting.

Good to see people that share similar interests; I have a taste for nicely done flash games that get freely distributed on the net aswell as FPSs.

I remember the first FPS I played was Golden Eye 007 on the Nintendo 64. Then in 2009 I played the game on a Nintendo 64 emulator on PC and it was still cool...the features of the game that were special for its time are still used in more recent FPS games...like splitscreen multiplayer, the slap action (which is replaced with melee action in many FPS games), aiming zoom etc.

Ken Levine was inspired greatly by Half Life when creating Bioshock, it was a fantastic, original game, it was such a shame that the second one, while solid, re-used too much of what made the original good.

I'm with you mostly. I like Half Life 2, but the original game is just better. My Uncle gave me a copy when I was about 12 for Christmas and it's a game that I fire up and really try to perfect, even now. It's the intensity of it that gets to me - no video sequences, very little time in scripted motion. It's just pure first-person and I love that.

One of the other games I still play from being very young (3!) is Prince of Persia. I've never managed to get beyond level 7 and it still drives me insane 19 years later.

I'm still a huge supporter of the "playability over graphics" ethos and while I love games like Half Life 2 and whatnot, I still go back to games like Super Mario Bros. for the NES and arcade games like Gauntlet, Track & Field, Paperboy, and the Sega classics like Enduro Racer, Space Harrier, Outrun (although Outrun2 is feckin' amazing!)

I'm with you mostly. I like Half Life 2, but the original game is just better. My Uncle gave me a copy when I was about 12 for Christmas and it's a game that I fire up and really try to perfect, even now. It's the intensity of it that gets to me - no video sequences, very little time in scripted motion. It's just pure first-person and I love that.

One of the other games I still play from being very young (3!) is Prince of Persia. I've never managed to get beyond level 7 and it still drives me insane 19 years later.

I prefer the original half life as well, but even that doesn't compete with Deus Ex, one of my all time favorite games. Made on the half-life engine, that game was an absolute revelation and there wouldn't be half the shooters with rpg elements like Mass Effect without it. The new one keeps getting delayed, but I'd say it would have to be my most anticipated game at the moment, and there are a few, I mean how good does the new Mortal Kombat look.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hellwyck

I'm still a huge supporter of the "playability over graphics" ethos and while I love games like Half Life 2 and whatnot, I still go back to games like Super Mario Bros. for the NES and arcade games like Gauntlet, Track & Field, Paperboy, and the Sega classics like Enduro Racer, Space Harrier, Outrun (although Outrun2 is feckin' amazing!)

Nothing wrong with that, I'm a first generation gamer and I regularly go back to my Master System/Megadrive and play long forgotten classics.

I adore games like Outrun 2 and Half Life 2 and all that gumbo but come on... Playing stuff like Gauntlet on the MAME emulator or Paperboy just brings me back to a simpler time.

While Nintendo and indy developers still bring out a handful of fantastic 2d platformers, there is something special about sticking in the cartridge and playing some Pirates of Dark Water or the Mickey Mouse Illusion series. Paperboy was certainly one of the better Atari games,

My best mate just set up a rig with 2x ATI 8950 2gb cards running Eyefinity. Three 27" 120hz screens at once running BC2 in approximately 8000x2000 res.

My god but it is beautiful, and the sound with the surround on the floating floor we built, we could just sit there all day watching it.

lol!!

Ummm... 7-series cards aren't even out yet; so it's likely that you mean to have a "6" in that model number? And the rez, well, you were kinda close; it'd either be 7680x1440 or 7680x1600.

I play Battlefield Bad Company 2 quite a bit; I have a decent rig set up, as I'm editor in chief of one of the oldest PC gaming hardware websites/communities... I've gotten the chance to review quite a bit of product pre-release over the years.

... These sorts of activities are cutting into time I'd rather spend working on album concepts, writing songs, promoting my band etc so there's a good possibility I may retire from gaming for good.

Rig specs:

Phenom II x6 1055t @ 3.96ghz

Kingwin XT-1264 cooler with extra 120mm fan

Asus M4N98TD EVO nforce 980a SLI motherboard

2x2gb A-DATA DDR3-1600

Present GPU: NVIDIA reference GTX 570; I used to have another one (SLI) but I recently sold it

Mushkin 60gb Sandforce SSD

2x250gb WD2500KS RAID 0

Sunbeam Tuniq 3 case

Antec Earthwatts EA650 PSU

DVD drive (I'd like to have a Blu-Ray drive though)

Samsung B2430 24" 1080p LCD

Sanyo 27" 720p TV (secondary/couch display)

Kingwin slim keyboard

MS Sidewinder X5 mouse

Logitech Revolution/MX5500 (bluetooth couch keyboard/mouse)

Win 7 Ultimate

I dig Left 4 Dead 2 as well (and also Lost Planet 2, Meto 2033, Gears of War PC, Halo 2 PC, Mirror's Edge, HAWX 2 & others), but BC2 has had me under its thumb since the beta.

A brief history of my gaming: OG Nintendo and then I dropped off the face of the planet when it came to video games until the PS2. Aside from periodically hanging out with friends and playing with them. Goldeneye was the ish.

I had what you could consider a serious addiction to the Hitman franchise on the PS2 console, and I'm cop fighting mad about the fact that they haven't even gotten into the current gen console. Madden and NHL were also big for me. Not to mention GTA Vice City (the best GTA in my opinion) and San Andreas (the best GTA soundtrack).

All of the Call of Duty games have been pretty enjoyable on the PS3, I'm a bit partial to the Infinity Ward stuff myself. Metal Gear Solid has been great as well.

Although, I'm a little worried that games have gotten too immersive and elongated (maybe it's just from my perspective). I'm 26 now; I unfortunately don't have the time to spend hours playing Madden and honing my skills like I did 5-10 years ago. Metal Gear Solid, as cool as it is, is freaking loooooooong. My PS3 spins more DVDs and Blu-Ray discs than it does games now a days.

I said approximately on the res, I couldn't remember the exact numbers, just that that was what it rounded up to on three screens. And yeah, 6950 sorry, ATI cards can be a bit confusing in the order they go in sometimes. The processor is a Phenom II X6 1100T of some description I think, AMD make a ton of different processors with only subtle variations and I'm not an expert on computers.

Have you seen the screens for Battlefield 3 yet? World exclusive previews in the February issue of Game Informer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixteenxnine

lol!!

Ummm... 7-series cards aren't even out yet; so it's likely that you mean to have a "6" in that model number? And the rez, well, you were kinda close; it'd either be 7680x1440 or 7680x1600.

I play Battlefield Bad Company 2 quite a bit; I have a decent rig set up, as I'm editor in chief of one of the oldest PC gaming hardware websites/communities... I've gotten the chance to review quite a bit of product pre-release over the years.

... These sorts of activities are cutting into time I'd rather spend working on album concepts, writing songs, promoting my band etc so there's a good possibility I may retire from gaming for good.

Rig specs:

Phenom II x6 1055t @ 3.96ghz

Kingwin XT-1264 cooler with extra 120mm fan

Asus M4N98TD EVO nforce 980a SLI motherboard

2x2gb A-DATA DDR3-1600

Present GPU: NVIDIA reference GTX 570; I used to have another one (SLI) but I recently sold it

Mushkin 60gb Sandforce SSD

2x250gb WD2500KS RAID 0

Sunbeam Tuniq 3 case

Antec Earthwatts EA650 PSU

DVD drive (I'd like to have a Blu-Ray drive though)

Samsung B2430 24" 1080p LCD

Sanyo 27" 720p TV (secondary/couch display)

Kingwin slim keyboard

MS Sidewinder X5 mouse

Logitech Revolution/MX5500 (bluetooth couch keyboard/mouse)

Win 7 Ultimate

I dig Left 4 Dead 2 as well (and also Lost Planet 2, Meto 2033, Gears of War PC, Halo 2 PC, Mirror's Edge, HAWX 2 & others), but BC2 has had me under its thumb since the beta.

My previous job was doing tech support, play-testing and compatibility testing for video games, and then porting crappy cell phone games... So yea, I play A LOT of games... Or rather, I DID, until I started playing drums... But of course, one of the things that sparked that interest, was rockband/guitar-hero.

Since I started playing (almost a yr ago) , I think the only serious game I've played (not counting DS games while traveling) was Assassin's Creed II (which was great). I got BioShock 2 after AC2, but it sucked and I stopped after an hour.

Paistemage: We've got some talkin' to do. I was TOTALLY into POW, Kung Fu, and Fester's Quest. I was a huge NES nerd in 4th-6th grade. I got the Super NES, and eventually a 64. Then, life took over, and I've just recently gotten a Wii to play with my 5 year old son. Right now, we're enjoying Super Mario Galaxy 2. That's a pretty sweet game. When he goes to bed, I sometimes throw in Call of Duty...

I remember playing that with a friend, very little skill involved in that game, there was an abusive way to beat every boss and you did it every time, remember doing electro shock as the teradactyl.

I have a lot of favourite games, kind of hard to pick across all generations because they are so different,

All time I loved Masters of Orion 2, Baldurs Gate, the Final Fantasy games, Quake 3, MK2 (I'm a big fighting game fan, been playing a lot of blazblue lately)

Of this generation probably Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age (or as I like to call it, the real neverwinter nights 2), Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain. Oh and Super Street Fighter 4 of course, but that goes without saying.

Might I say the new MK is the first time I've been looking forward to a MK game since the original ps2 one came out (that was a pretty fail game, lots of unlocks though). They brought my favourite character back, I love Jax, always been a fan of the big, slow, heavy, hard hitting types in games.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuo

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I'll probably get bored one day and pop it back in. I loved the 1st one, but couldn't get into the 2nd (altho I didn't give it too much of a chance).

I'm not much of a gamer. I do love to play the NCAA Football 2010/11 games and i'm a huge fan of the Call of Duty series includeing the Modern Warefare games. I may get flamed for this but i also love the Rock Band games as well. Just because it's something that my wife and i can do together that's music related since she doesn't play a real instrument.

Of this generation probably Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age (or as I like to call it, the real neverwinter nights 2), Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain. Oh and Super Street Fighter 4 of course, but that goes without saying.

Haha. Yea I think the most disappointing day of my life was the day NW(1) came out. I was addicted to Baldur's Gate, so when NW was announced I was expecting the best thing ever... and it wasn't :(

Dragon Age was great though, not up there with Baldurs, but still a good game. 4 people parties just wasn't enough, 6 was perfect. With 4 it was just to limited, there wasn't enough flexibility... You needed a healer, and there was only 1 i think (that old chick), then your main character, then you only had 2 slots to play with...

Haha. Yea I think the most disappointing day of my life was the day NW(1) came out. I was addicted to Baldur's Gate, so when NW was announced I was expecting the best thing ever... and it wasn't :(

Dragon Age was great though, not up there with Baldurs, but still a good game. 4 people parties just wasn't enough, 6 was perfect. With 4 it was just to limited, there wasn't enough flexibility... You needed a healer, and there was only 1 i think (that old chick), then your main character, then you only had 2 slots to play with...

Dragon Age had more of an action rpg feel, partly due to the fact it wasn't D&D based, more core MMO gameplay, simplified for console.

I really liked Neverwinter, the actual gameplay for a one person d&d style experience was spot on, far more entertaining then BG shadows of amn gameplay, but the story was linear without the depth; you had choice, but it all led to the same conclusions and it held your hand too much.

The thing that won me other with BG, above all over games, almost of all time, was the story, it had the depth of a beautifully written fantasy novel and it carried it, you actually felt for the characters.

I know Final Fantasy was doing that on the SNES, but most games didn't immerse you in who the characters were until we got BG, I credit it a lot for that.

I am a huge one for story, and I love the story in Dragon Age, it is an involving world, with multiple nations, traditions, histories and the way it handles origins and relationships is very tasteful and actually enchances the experience.

I'd be hard pressed not to call Dragon Age 2 my most anticipated game, but this year has so many titles I'm looking forward to coming out.

I mean, on the fighting front, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and MK, then you have new Uncharted, new Elder Scrolls, Killzone 3, the new id software ip... the list goes on and on.

The end result is often cited as one of the worst video games released, and was The end result is often cited as one of the worst video games released, and was one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history.

E.T. is frequently cited as a contributing factor to Atari's massive financial losses during 1983 and 1984. As a result of overproduction and returns, unsold cartridges were also buried in a New Mexico landfill. The game's commercial failure and resulting effects on Atari are frequently cited as a contributing factor to the video game industry crash of 1983.